A two-and-a-half-year-old female leopard, was found dead on the Bathalapalli Main Road, atop a hillock near Pernambut town in Vellore, on the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border, late on Tuesday, November 14, 2023.
Around 9 p.m that day, Forest Department officials at the check-post at the foothills of the hillock, received an alert about the leopard. Immediately, a five-member forest team led by P. Satish Kumar, forest range officer (Pernambut), rushed to the spot, around five km from the check-post, and recovered the carcass of the animal.
Forest Department officials said that the leopard might have been killed by a speeding vehicle on this stretch. Officials moved the carcass of the animal from the narrow carriageway to a nearby area to ascertain for injuries, and found the hip of the animal broken. They did not find any blood or other marks on the animal, and ruled out the possibility of poaching. They said that the animal might have emerged from the Kaundinya Wildlife Sanctuary in Chittoor (A.P) into reserve forests along the border.
Forest officials said that motorists on the route and residents in hamlets along the Bathalapalli and Nayakaneri RFs had reported the movement of a leopard in areas of human habitation for the past fortnight. Subsequently, forest officials intensified their night patrols on the route. They had also advised motorists, especially lorry drivers, to drive slowly along the route.
The 11 km stretch of the hillock, which connects Tamil Nadu with Andhra Pradesh, is frequented by goods-laden lorries that mostly carry vegetables from wholesale markets in Vellore. “As the incident occurred in the Nayakaneri reserve forest (RF) that comes under the Chittoor forest range of A.P, the carcass of the animal was handed over to Chittoor forest officials for a post-mortem,” Mr. Kumar told The Hindu.
